With burdens of the dead, fome that were hang'd, No matter wear them, betray with them: whore ftill; Paint 'till a horfe may mire upon your face, Both. Well, more gold;-What then? In hollow bones of man; ftrike their sharp fhins, Nor found his quillets fhrilly. Hoar the flamen,+ Down with the nose, Down with it flat; take the bridge quite away Smells from the general weal. Make curl'd-pate ruffians bald, And men to entice fuch as had fine hair into private places, and there to cut it off. I have this information from Stubbs's Anatomy of Abafes, which I have often quoted on the article of drefs. STEEV. 3 mens' Spurring.— ] Hanmer reads Sparring, properly enough, if there be any ancient example of the word. JOHNSON. Hoar the flamen,] Mr. Upton would read barfe, i. e. make hoarfe; for to be boary claims reverence. Add to this (fays he) that boarfe is here most proper, as oppos'd to colds. It may, however, mean,-Give the flamen the hoary leprofy. STEEVENS. 5that his particular to foresee] In this beautiful paffage there is a ftrange jumble of metaphors. To fmell in order to forefee, is ufing the benefit of the fenfes in a very abfurd way. The fente too, is as bad as the expreffion: Men do not forfake and betray the public in order to forefte their own particular advantage, but to provide for it. Forefeeing is not the confequence of betraying, but one of the caufes of it. Without doubt we should read, Of him, that, his particular to forefend, Smells from the gen'ral weal. i. e. provide for, fecure. Forefend has a great force and beauty And let the unfcarr'd braggarts of the war Both. More counfel, with more money, bounteous Tim. More whore, more mischief firft. I have Alc. Strike up the drum towards Athens. Farewell, Timon; If I thrive well, I'll vifit thee again. Tim. If I hope well, I'll never fee thee more. Alc. I never did thee harm. Tim. Yes, thou spok'ft well of me, Alc. Call'st thou that harm? in this place, as fignifying not barely to fecure, but to make a previous provifin for jecuring. WARBURTON. The metaphor is apparently incongruous, but the fenfe is good. To forefee his particular, is to provide for his private advantage, for which he leaves the right fcent of publick good. In hunting, when hares have crofs'd one another, it is common for fome of the hounds to fmeli from the general weal, and forefee their own particu lar. Shakespeare, who feems to have been a fkilful sportsman, and has alluded often to falconry, perhaps, alludes here to hunting. To the commentator's emendation it may be objected, that he ufed forefind in the wrong meaning. To forefend, is, I think, never to provide for, but to provide against. The verbs compounded with for or fore have commonly either an evil or negative fenfe. JOHNSON, To grave is to entomb. The word is now obsolete, tho' fometimes ufed by Shakespeare and his contemporary authors. To ungrave was likewife to turn out of a grave. Thus in Marston's Sophenia, -and me, now dead, Deny a grave: hurl us among the rocks "To ftanch beafts hunger; therefore, thus ungrav'd, I feek flow reft." STEEVENS Tim. Men daily find it. Get thee away, and take thy beagles with thee. [Drum beats. Exeunt Alcibiades, Phrynia, and Timandra. Tim. [Digging.] That nature, being fick of man's unkindness, 8 Should yet be hungry! -Common mother, thou Go 7 Whofe womb unmeasurable, and infinite breaft] This image is taken from the ancient ftatues of Diana Ephefia Multimammia, called παναίολος φύσις πάντων Μήτης; and is a very good comment on those extraordinary figures. See Montfaucon, l'Antiquité expliquée, 1. iii. c. 15. Hefiod, alluding to the fame reprefentations, calls the earth, ΓΑΙ ΕΥΡΥΣΤΕΡΝΟΣ, WARBURTON. Whofe infinite breaft means no more than whose boundless furface. Shakespeare probably knew nothing of that to which the commentator alludes. STEEVENS. 8 -eyelefs venom'd worm ;] The ferpent, which we, from the fmallness of his eyes, call the blind worm, and the Latins, cæcilia. 9 JOHNSON. -below crisp beaver,] We should read cript, i. e. vaulted, from the Latins crypta, a vault. WARBURTON. Mr. Upton declares for crifp, curled, bent, hollow. JOHNSON. Perhaps Shakespeare means curl'd, from the appearance of the clouds. In the Tempest, Ariel talks of riding "on the curl'd clouds." STEEVENS. * Let it no more bring out ungrateful man!] This is an abfurd reading. Shakespeare wrote, Go great with dragons, tigers, wolves and bears; Never prefented !-O, a root,-Dear thanks! bring out to ungrateful man! i. e. fruits for his fuftenance and fupport; but let it rather teem with monfters to his deftruction. Nor is it to be pretended, that this alludes to the fable: for he is fpeaking of what the earth now brings forth; which thought he repeats afterwards, Dry up thy harrow'd veins, and plow-torn leas, &c. WARBURTON. It is plain that bring out is bring forth, with which the following lines correfpond fo plainly, that the commentator might be fuf pected of writing his note without reading the whole paffage. JOHNSON. 2 Dry up thy marrows, vrins, and plow-torn leas;] The integrity of the metaphor abfolutely requires that we fhould read, Dry up thy harrow'd veins, and plow-torn leas. Mr. Theobald owns that this gives a new beauty to the verfe, yet, as unctuous morsels follows, marrows might have gone before, and mean the fat of the land. That is, because there is a metaphor afterwards that fuits it, it may be admitted, though it violates the metaphor in the place it is ufed in. But this unhappy critic never confidered that men ought to earn this fat before they eat it. From this emendation the Oxford editor has sprung another, and reads, WARE. Dry up thy meadows, vinyards I cannot concur to cenfure Theobald as a critic very unhappy. He was weak, but he was cautious: finding but little power in his mind, he rarely ventured far under its conduct. This timidity hindered him from daring conjectures, and fometimes hindered him happily. This paffage, among many others, may pafs without change. The genuine reading is not marrows, veins, but marrows, vines: the fenfe is this; O nature! ceafe to produce men, enfear thy womb ; but if thou wilt continue to produce them, at least ceafe to pamper them; dry up thy marrows, on which they fatten with un&uous morfels, thy vines, which give them liquorifh draughts, and thy plowtorn leas. Here are effects correfponding with caufes, liquorih draughts with vines, and unduous morfels with marrows, and the old reading literally preferved. JOHNSON. Whereof Whereof ingrateful man with liquorish draughts, Enter Apemantus. More man? plague! plague! Apem. I was directed hither. Men report, From change of fortune. Why this fpade? this place? Tim. Were I like thee, I'd throw away myself. Apem. Thou haft caft away thyfelf, being like thyfelf; So long a madman, now a fool. What, think'st thou, 3—the cunning of a carper.] For the philofophy of a Cypic, of which fect Apemantus was: and therefore he concludes, -Do not affume my likeness. WARBURTON. Cunning here feems to fignify counterfeit appearance. JOHNSON. |